Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (33 page)

Cote sighed. They'd been around this barn so many times they'd worn a groove in the ground. "You have to tread lightly with these people, Joe."

"Unmarked cars," Burgess said. "No uniforms or lights or sirens. We didn't bang on the door or raise our voices, and we didn't leave the girl in tears." He shrugged. "I don't see how we could have been more discreet. It's not like we dragged anyone down here and shut them up in a small room. If the neighbors noticed anything, I'm sure they thought Kyle was a Bible salesman and I was his reformed convict assistant. Or we were both Mormons on a mission. Or spreading damp and tattered copies of
The Watchtower
."

Before the duck's ass could spit out any more words, he added, "I hope you reassured her that Portland's finest would try not to darken her door again." He knew Cote had. The captain seemed to have decided his mission was to ensure that law enforcement was as difficult as possible for his officers.

"You still working on the Libby thing?"

"You mean the Reginald Libby homicide? Yes. We are."

"You don't need three detectives on it," Cote said.

"I'm the primary," Burgess said.

"I'm the captain. And I say you should reassign Perry to some of our other cases. City's going to hell and you're spending all these resources on some homeless guy."

Much as Burgess disliked the press, he wished to hell some bleeding heart reporter could have heard that remark. "Really? Today I was spending resources on a teenage assault victim. On a major drug stash down at the marina on a party boat. On two significant littering sites that have a strong negative impact on the quality of life in the city. On an assault on a police officer. Two assaults," he corrected himself, if he included Star Goodall. "Two police officers. On a suspected white-collar crime involving toxic chemicals." Leaning in closer, he said, "That sounds like wasted resources to you?" He shoved back his chair. "Was there anything else?"

"Discretion, Joe. Just use your discretion." Cote picked up one of his perfectly sharpened pencils from the line of them on his blotter. "You can go." As Burgess was going out the door, he added, "I assured Mrs. Mercer you wouldn't bother her daughter again."

Too right, Burgess thought. Dwyer would. A beating and a near rape were hardly enough to justify upsetting Mrs. Mercer. Why was she so keen to have him stay away?

He was leaving the garage when Burgess remembered something Hazen had said. Ignoring his hunger and the waiting chicken, he pulled out his notebook and thumbed through the pages. There it was. In describing Joey's decision to sell, Hazen had said, "They didn't need
another
piece of waterfront property." Another answer Clay Libby might have. One Claire certainly had but was unlikely to share. He made a note, put the book away, and headed home.

Chapter 25

Chris had made his favorite meal—roast chicken, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, peas and cranberry sauce—and she'd made a ton of everything not just because they had a crowd but because she knew he loved leftovers. Perry and Kyle were attacking their food like starving men, their moods visibly improving as they ate. Michelle sat quietly and smiled, something she did a lot lately, happy that Kyle was back on an even keel again after the hell he'd put all of them through in the summer.

Kyle's girls, growing up too fast as other people's children always did, were friendly, chatty, and polite. He caught Chris gazing at them with a longing that stabbed him. Just because he wasn't ready for a family didn't mean she wasn't, or that she should give up her desire to adopt Nina and Ned. He'd been alone before he met her; he could live alone again. Alone without all the warm, humanizing touches Chris brought to his place, and to his life. Order. Color. Pictures. Flowers. Food. Sex and sensibility.

As he gazed around the table at hungry people enjoying a delicious homemade meal, Burgess realized he was a lot like Reggie in his longing for normal. For decades he'd worked a job where there was no normal, or where normal was crazy hours, human violence, and a schedule that was never your own. He recognized the dichotomy—he feared normal because he worried that it might make him lose his edge. He longed for normal precisely because it took some of the edges off and made him feel more balanced and human.

After a while, Kyle set down his fork. "So, what did Cote want?"

"He wants Stanley to stop wasting time on a worthless investigation and go work on some more important crime. And he wants us to stop bothering nice people like the Mercers, who get upset when there are cops on the doorstep."

"I'm not—" Perry began.

"We're not—" Kyle said. Perry glared and Kyle gestured that he could have the floor.

"That man lives with his head up his fu... freakin' ass," Perry said. "He needs to get out more. See what life on the street is really like instead of acting like Reggie's death and what we do doesn't matter. Like only important people matter. I'd like to—"

"Not at the table," Chris said, putting a hand on his arm. "There are children present."

He shook her hand off, then ducked his head apologetically. "Sorry, Chris," he said. "It's not you. It's just getting so fricking hard to be a cop in this city. Dealing with the public's hard enough and then that ass—"

"Stanley!"

Perry shut up, but everything about him said how much he wanted to speak. He rocked and wriggled on his chair, restless as a toddler. Kyle wasn't much better, nor was Burgess. Dinner was delicious and the company pleasant, but the interlude felt artificial, all three detectives poised like springs, ready to jump into action as soon as they were released. Elsewhere in the city, a drug team was searching Nick Goodall's boat. Nick Goodall waited to be interviewed. People with answers held them tightly to their chests and wouldn't share.

Chris started gathering up dishes, and Michelle rose to help. "Who wants pie? And ice cream?" she asked.

Everyone wanted pie and ice cream. Michelle and the girls finished clearing. As Chris started dishing out pie, Burgess wandered absently to check the top of the bookcase, where she always left his mail. The usual assortment of bills and police-related stuff, and a hand-addressed letter in a writing he didn't recognize. Curious, he tore it open.

He didn't recognize the return address, but the letter began, "Dear Joe," as though the sender knew him. He fast forwarded to the end and read the signature. Margaret Kimball. Maggie. He and Maggie had been an item for a few years, maybe fifteen years ago. They'd even lived together for a while. But Maggie, like other girlfriends, couldn't stand his dedication to his job, and he couldn't stand her constantly nagging at him to change. It had ended with surprising swiftness. He'd come home one afternoon to find her things gone. A note on the counter of the nearly bare kitchen said she couldn't take it anymore. She'd gone home. She'd asked him not to try and get in touch.

Home, he recalled, was somewhere in the Midwest. The return address on this envelope was Kansas. He went back to the beginning and started to read.

Dear Joe,

I hope you will forgive me for this letter, and for keeping this from you for so long. When I left, it was my firm intention never to be in touch with you again. I expunged you from my memory like you had never existed. I would have gone on that way forever and never bothered you with this, but recently I realized that my stubbornness is not always a virtue.

He stopped reading. He didn't have the stamina right now for a letter of regret or recrimination or a recitation, however important it might be to her, of the harm he'd done or what their relationship might have come to if he'd only been willing to commit. He started to stuff it back in the envelope, but realized it would haunt him until he finished, a distraction he didn't need. He unfolded it and read on.

You're probably expecting me to berate you about what might have been, but the truth is, I doubt that things would have been any different if I'd stayed. You were always so certain about who you were and what you needed to do. Certainty that made you an excellent cop and a bad boyfriend. That's not what this letter is about. I'm writing only because there is something I've kept from you all these years that you have a right to know.

He stopped again, a knot of anxiety forming in his gut. For a while, he just stood and breathed, holding the letter without finishing it, then forced himself to read on.

I left when I did, and as suddenly as I did, because I was pregnant. I knew you wouldn't pressure me to have an abortion and would have supported any decision I made, but I wanted to keep the baby and I didn't want you to marry me just because you felt you had to. That wasn't you and that wasn't me. Of course I wanted you to marry me, but I wanted it to be what we attorneys call "your free act and deed." I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with a man I loved who would always feel trapped, so I didn't tell you. I didn't give you a chance to have a say in the matter. I left and went on with my life without you.

My son... I should say "our son," Dylan Joseph Kimball, will be fifteen on his next birthday. And because of him, I have never completely left you behind. Take a look at the photograph. I didn't know you at that age, of course, but I'm betting he's the spitting image of you. Not only your looks, Joe, but your personality, so I guess there is something to that nature/nurture thing.

Burgess fished around in the envelope and came up with a school photo of a dark-haired boy. He stared at it, seeing himself in the fierce dark eyes staring back, the stubborn chin, and narrow mouth.

Chris, passing with a plate of pie, glanced at his face, at the picture, and almost dropped the plate. "Joe?"

He didn't answer until she gripped his arm and leaned right into his face. "Joe," she said again, her low, insistent voice pulling him back into focus. "What's going on? Who is that boy?"

"I don't know yet." He felt as stunned and stupid as an accident victim. "I... it was... it was in the letter. Excuse me." He pulled away, turning his back on her stunned face, went into the bedroom and shut the door. The door muffled the sounds of confused questions and commotion as he sat on the bed and finished the letter.

I've had a husband for a while. Actually, for most of the time I've been out here. He's a good man, a superior court judge, and we've got two other children, a boy who's twelve and a girl who's nine. But Dylan knows he's not Stephen's child, and to tell the truth, they've never gotten along that well, though in fairness, both of them have tried. It's just chalk and cheese, or whatever the old expression is. Now that he's a teenager, it's getting worse. Dylan really wants to know who he is. Who you are. I told him that I would write to you and...

And now, Joe, I find myself at a loss for words. You might well smile. I never did seem to be, did I? There's no graceful way to do this, is there? I told Dylan I'd see if you were interested in meeting him... the first step, I think... toward the possibility that you might consider raising your son the rest of the way yourself.

There were smudges on the page that he did not want to think were tears. He knew they were. It felt so odd, so utterly surreal, to be sitting here in his room, on the bed he shared with Chris, and fifteen years down the road, and having this all come at him like something out of a made-for-TV movie.

He... my... our son is a great kid. A credit, really, to both of us. Verbal and social like me, yet stoic and wise like you. He's a rock to his brother and sister. Yes, he plays football. And no, I did not raise him Catholic, though I know your mother—good soul that she is—would have liked that very much.

Writing this, I realize I don't know if your mother is still alive. For a long time, I kept in touch with people and they kept me up on the news, but not recently. That was always one of my regrets, that Dylan didn't get to know her.

Anyway, Dylan keeps asking if I've written, and I keep putting it off, but here it is. Think about this. Consider whether you'd at least like to meet him. I've tried not to raise any expectations on his part. He didn't know who you were—I mean your name, I always told him stories about you—until recently. He's been reading about you on-line. Kids these days are so much more sophisticated than we ever dreamed of being. And he says he wants to meet you.

So now, forgive the sports cliché, the ball is in your court. Let me know if you have questions.